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What are the differances between the different types of MPLS?

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I appologize in advance if this is a stupid question, However I am in sales and had some questions regarding a product my company offers! The last thing I want to do is oversell or over promise a prospective customer something that is either, not the best fit or the the best option for them! And unfortunatly my direct managers are pushing us to sell a product that they don’t even understnad! We have a sales engenier who is extremely knowladgable, but is supporting to many reps and therefore cant always take the time to teach me these products!

With that said …

I have read many articals over the topic and feel I have a basic understanding to the ‘Idea of MPLS” however I’m not sure of the differences in the different types, i.e. MPLS VPN, LV1 MPLS, LV2 MPLS, ect.

Can someone please help me so that I’m able to better understand what I am offering these Buisness owners who don’t currently have a IT department? Any feedback would be greatly Appreciated!!!

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Clarifications

In reply to What are the differances between the different types of MPLS?

Clarifications

MPLS just means a nice fast reliable connection

In reply to What are the differances between the different types of MPLS?

MPLS stands for Multi-Protocol Label Switching. It is a network connection type that carefully controls connection paths between locations by labeling each packet…it treats each packet special.

“This gives the MPLS network the ability to handle packets with particular characteristics (such as coming from particular ports or carrying traffic of particular application types) in a consistent fashion. Packets carrying real-time traffic, such as voice or video, can easily be mapped to low-latency routes across the network ??? something that???s challenging with conventional routing. The key architectural point with all this is that the labels provide a way to ???attach??? additional information to each packet ??? information above and beyond what the routers previously had.”
http://www.networkworld.com/research/2007/040207-mpls-migration-explained.html

A VPN is an encrypted tunnel, and when used with MPLS, means an encrypted tunnel is created between two locations so that the customer data is secure.

LV1 vs LV2 sound like marketing terms, not network terms. Do you mean ‘service level 1’ or level 1? (two very different things)

But here is my guess:

Two popular ways of selling MPLS are by offering a defined QOS to the customer (level 1) or a cheaper ‘best effort’ connection (level 2) class of service.

QOS (Quality of service) means that certain traffic (such as voice and video) are guaranteed certain bandwidth, where a best effort network means that traffic that can tolerate a bit of delay is sent that way.

If a customer is running Voice over IP, for example, they need a the more expensive MPLS service that delivers a defined QOS for the voice packets in order for the phone to work properly.

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